Trader’s Narrative

In June when crude oil closed above $138, I featured the chart below, showing that adjusted for inflation crude oil was not only exhibiting classic bubble behavior, but that it dwarfed previous oil spikes:

The next day as Texas tea ramped up the most dollars in its trading history, I mentioned that even if we looked at crude oil priced in gold, it was expensive:

…which would imply that if this ratio has any significance, a top in oil is close at hand.

It took a few weeks until the top was put in oil at ~$148 in mid July. But as of now it is down approximately 27%

A quick glance at the chart shows previous resistance, now support, at the round number $100. When or if, oil continues to fall, it will provide relief for the economy. As for whether the spike up was manipulation, normal market dynamics, a bubble, etc. I’ll leave you to explore that for yourself.

You can find a lot of links about oil and the price of oil here.

The last time I revisited the Chinese stock market, it was in the throes of a major bear market. Fast forwarding to now shows things have only intensified with the Shanghai composite trading at less than half of its top in October 2007:

While we quibble about a percentage point here and there to see if our market decline fits into the classic definition of a bear market, there are no qualms regarding that in China.

Support?
The scary thing is that even after falling so much, the index is still far from major support areas. If you look at the link above, you’ll see a long term chart of the Shanghai composite going back to its founding. According to that chart, significant support is somewhere in the vicinity of the 2000 level. That would put a potential fall to almost 70%!

I have no idea if that will happen but the Chinese stock market certainly has precedent. It is not for the faint of heart. The Shanghai Composite can go ballistic: rising as it going ten fold in the span of a year (1991-1992) but it can also lapse into deep stagnation, as it did from 2000 to 2007, treading sideways.

Dire Portents
But what interests me more is the portent of such a dramatic decline for the price of crude oil. From what I read, China holds significant responsibility for the current price of oil because of its voracious appetite. But if the stock market is a forward discounting mechanism, that means that the Chinese economy is about to decelerate or even go into a tailspin.

The corollary of that is lower demand for oil and, if I remember Economics 101 correctly, that would mean a lower oil price - all things being equal.

Last week I showed a long term graph of the price of crude oil adjusted for inflation. But some may disagree that that graph shows a complete picture since inflation can be misstated and since the US dollar is a worthless pieces of paper. Gold is real money. Or so I’m told. So let’s take a look at crude oil priced in gold:

Well, it turns out that even priced in that “currency” oil is expensive.

In fact, each time that the ratio of oil to gold spikes up, the price of oil (in dollars) falls. The first spike on the chart is in late 1990 and corresponds to the Persian Gulf war.

The next time was in late 2000 when crude oil peeked above $36 and then retreated. The ratio’s significance gets a bit wobbly in 2005 since oil didn’t find a top until the summer of 2006.

And finally, that brings us to today. Or rather last Friday when oil closed up the most dollars in a day in its trading history and hit the circuit breakers. Could the explanation be that the market smells war (with Iran)? Many believe so.

The above graph looks like it might have a slightly upward channel - which would imply that if this ratio has any significance, a top in oil is close at hand.

What can possibly explain the behavior of the price of oil? The Senate committee has heard testimony from a variety of sources and a variety of viewpoints ranging from accusing the regulators to be tacit participants in market manipulation to “Peak Oil”.

This same sort of back and forth happens whenever we have bubbles forming. There are always those who argue that it is simply a speculative mania, and then there are the true “believers” who bring arguments and evidence why things have changed.

To show you how difficult it is to make any sense of this, consider that two very smart and very wealthy investors find themselves on opposite sides of the argument: George Soros believes there is a bubble, while his ex-partner, Jim Rogers, feels the opposite is true.

But it isn’t difficult to see why many believe that the price of oil no longer represents a true picture of the value of this commodity; after all, it has more than doubled within the span of less than two years:

Note that the chart above is using a logarithmic axis for price and even then you can see that the slope of the rise from 2007 to present is much steeper than that between 2002 - 2006. Here’s an even more long term chart of crude, this time adjusted for inflation:

Source: St. Louis Fed (FRED database)

Oil Shock
This chart clearly shows that the world economy is undergoing a severe “oil shock”. One that pales in comparison to ones which we’ve seen so far in either the Gulf War or the 1979 Iranian Revolution (or the 1973-4 oil embargo - not shown on chart). Which goes a long way in explaining why consumer sentiment is at multi-decade lows.

One of the defining characteristics of a mania is a parabolic chart: increasingly steep price curve within a shorter and shorter time frame. And clearly, that is what we are seeing. While there may be disagreements whether this is really a bubble, what most can not deny is that the rise we have seen so far is just unsustainable if projected into the future.

Perfect Storm
My gut feeling is that we are seeing a confluence of forces, among them, long only commodity funds, a weak dollar, negative real interest rates (which always increase commodity prices) and demand from an increasingly voracious industrial complex in China and India.

But the fact that the increase in price has come in such a short time and it has been so incredibly sharp tells me that it can not be simply explained by the usual market forces of demand and supply. Something else must be at work to drive the price of crude as high as it has done within such a short time span. But only time will reveal what exactly what that “something else” is.

If you doubt that bubbles can not form in “real assets” then you’ve probably overlooked a lot of examples from history: the Japanese real estate bubble, gold, silver, etc. And if you believe that market manipulation is impossible or the overworked imagination of conspiracy theorists, then I would remind you of the California electricity crisis in 2000.

Silver Lining
If the price of oil here truly represents real demand and supply the potential silver lining on such a cloud is that it will not only change people’s consumption habits, it will spur on the development of better alternative energy sources. This is what I don’t understand, if you are a dyed in the wool “peak oil” believer, why invest in a dying industry? why not invest in those companies which will rise up out of the ashes and propel us forward? or do the “peak oilers” believe we are going to regress technologically?

Or consider it another way, if you were to go back in time, would you try to corner the whale oil market? or invest in Texas oil fields?

Wow, check this out. I’m on Bloomberg!

No, not the website, but the Bloomberg Professional service. Click to enlarge the image - my article is second from the top: What is really going on with the price of oil?

It is on the NI HEDGE pages. I had no idea Bloomberg scoured the net, including blogs. Neat.

But why did they spell the name of the blog incorrectly?

Thanks to reader Anthony from New Zealand for the heads up.